Dalagang Bukid
1919 film by José Nepomuceno
Dalagang Bukid (English: Country Maiden) is a 1919 Filipino silent film. Directed by José Nepomuceno, it is recognized as the first full-length Filipino-produced and directed feature film. An adaptation of the Tagalog sarsuwela of the same name by Hermogenes Ilagan, the film stars Atang de la Rama and Marceliano Ilagan, both of whom reprise their roles from the original sarsuwela production.
All of Nepomuceno's films, including Dalagang Bukid and its sequel La Venganza de Don Silvestre, are lost.
Plot
Angelita (Atang de la Rama), a young flower vendor who works in front of a cabaret named Dalagang Bukid, and poor law student Cipriano (Marceliano Ilagan) are in love. However, Angelita is forced by her parents to marry a wealthy loan shark, Don Silvestre, as they need money to pay for their gambling habit and other vices. Angelita's parents grant Don Silvestre permission to marry their daughter after he arranges for her to win a beauty contest. Before the coronation, Angelita and Cipriano wed in secret at Santa Cruz Church. They travel together to the coronation pageant only to inform Don Silvestre that they are now married. The film ends with the elderly loan shark fainting upon hearing the news.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Dalagang Bukid” is 1919 film by José Nepomuceno. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Dalagang, Bukid and film, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1919 film by José Nepomuceno” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5210179. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1919.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dalagang Bukid” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.